ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – A little over two months after she was injured in an ATV accident, Olympic gold medalist Amy Van Dyken Rouen was discharged from Craig Hospital.

"It's been a lot of work, absolutely," Dyken Rouen said. "It's been a lot of smiles, and a lot of laughs and a lot of 'woo-hoos,' and a lot of singing. There's been a lot of tears shed for sure. This is not easy. And I don't want to portray the fact that because I have a smile on my face that it really is easy. It's really not."

Van Dyken Rouen, who won four gold medals at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, was severely injured when an ATV rolled on top of her on June 6 near her home in Show Low, Ariz.. Her case was so serious that she and her husband, former Denver Broncos punter Tom Rouen, said their goodbyes before she was rushed into surgery.

Dyken Rouen said on Thursday during her press conference that there have been many challenges for her during her recovery, but the biggest one was being back in her favorite place: a swimming pool.

"The first time I went into the swimming pool was the hardest thing," Dyken Rouen said. "Because I'm going in there as a spinal-cord injured individual who is supposed to be doing therapy in the pool, and I was like, 'I'm not doing therapy, I'm doing laps.' And they looked at me like, 'this is not what we're doing.'"

Recently, Van Dyken Rouen boasted on Twitter that she had finally graduated from a hospital bed to a regular bed. On Twitter, she posted a photo of a sporty new wheelchair featuring purple rims and skulls etched onto the metal bars.

She says she can't wait to get out into the world. "I am a better person than before this injury," Van Dyken Rouen said. "I feel like I'm going to do everything."